Fork. I can't find my notes on last week's T session, but will put down what I remember.
This was the second time we processed a particlary triggering story, and I notice I'll just blather on and on if the T doesn't stop me pretty quickly.... put the story on the shelf then move on to what we're there to do.
I AM RIGHT THERE, in that moment, unable to distinguish between then and the present.... I am engaged fully, as I was in those moments. She sees that, and cuts it right off. We focus on the sensations, we do some EMDR, we check in and note any changes, then dive back into the sensations.
At a point we bring up the event, and I think about it from beginning to end while doing EMDR. Check in with how I'm feeling, focus on that and do more EMDR.
It's like we bring up the distress, then calm it down, bring it up, calm it down, and so on. Put numbers on it. In this case I had a very sharp stabbing pain in my back, left side which is associate with being chakras, and being betrayed in a nutshell. Made sense to me.
Next we go through the story and loop it from beginning to end more than once while doing EMDR, then check in on feelings, and address them witih EMDR.
I'm not sure what happens next, so will jot down approximates....
Bring up someone INTO the scenario we look up to, trust, feel protected by and advocated by.... I chose myself, again, grown, calm, and helping everyone in the scene, which was intuitive for me.
I went through the story as I wished it had happened, and that went pretty quick, compared to the other stuff. I noticed the original story was getting more difficult to bring into focus, when I tried, and was just not coming up for me when I tried to picture it as we went along.
Then it was time to put everything in to a box from the original story, or from a set of years, or an entire lifetime, or just an entire childhood, and I chose all the upsetting incidents I could recall, put them in the box, and chose total destruction through burning.
I built the fire in my firepit, and there were family membersd... everyone close, all deceased, and my siblings when they were younger, and our grandparents and parents comforted sibs and my younger self while I burned the entire box to ashes. Mom served food from a picnic basket.... children napped.... everyone sat in the old time yard chairs from my Paternal grandparent's yard.
When the deed was done, I think we got up, and headed toward a bridge to our new lives. At the bridges edge we stopped to empty our pockets of everything from the past that needed to be left behind. I just had us take off all our clothes, and walk across the bridge in white cotton shifts, shorts and tee shirts.
When we got there we explored how that felt, then pictured a fountain.
Babies played in the spray, and grandparents sat on the edge, or in chairs by the side, and I dived in, and twirled, and did backflips in the water over and over... just all in, immersed, and refreshed.
I didn't think about the original story, bc in memory reconsolidation you want to let the new story continue processing as is. Every time we bring up a picture or story it's changed. Never static. It was easy to leave it alone, as it was the first time we did this for a different story..... I'd say I was 4 yo for the first one, and 11yo for the second story.
Those two stories were traced back from current trigger stories, and we worked on them until there was zero emotional charge involved with any aspect of the original story or the present-day triggers we started with.
It's easier to lean into the discomfort of this work when I know and trust it leads to processing the story, and into a serene place of relief, and gratitude it's done. I believe it will last, and so far so good... it's 100% remained in place. Old stories gone.
New stories in place... I experience so much relief where there was a lot of pain, tough emotions, and painful bodily sensations. Like a thousand pounds lifted. I don't care what the pounds were, or where they went, though I visualize them as
engaging unprocessed emotions in the amygdala....
the T assists with brain integration, helping to bring other parts of the brain online to support the amygdala, relieve tension around the story and in the brain, and make it possible to move that story into the processing center, then present it again and again to be processed until the brain has calmed enough to complete processing and file it into historic files in just the way I would have had that story go IF I HAD CONTROL OVER THE SITUATION.
I can't tell you how satisfying it is to EXPERIENCE that outcome, and process.... just the details that come out of my mouth when asked how I'd rather have had that experience go.... I'm always shocked by the details and direction, and those things come without having to think, typically, or with very little reflection. It feels like just the right answers were always there, waiting.
This is a pretty close approximating, and I didn't remember the fire, or the bridge, or the fountain from the first time we completed this process. It felt like we were doing this for the first time.
Shiftring into fight or flight mode feels a lot like being blindfolded and gagged.... sat on..... forced into a corner..... unable to move or shift out of that space, and it's EVERYTHING.....
I just didn't have the ability to remember those parts of the process when we completed the experience the first time.
I must not have had access to the parts of my brain that create new memories while I was IN that place..... and this time.... that I can remember more.... for me means I've calmed my brain enough to have some restored access during times of intense stress.... of reducing the stress, and it's hoped every time we get through this, along with consistent practice to fire and wire new neural pathways... I'll achieve more resilience, finish processing the unprocessed triggers from most to least powerful, until I'm able to regulate my emotions consistently as default setting. If not, I'll know how to calm myself and move into a place where I can regulate my emotions.
Sometimes when we do check ins at the end of a session, something will come up... 2 sessions ago it was a T who harmed me and my children... the court appointed T who terrorized us an entire summer, and made my children fearl they'd be taken from me and given to their paternal grandparents in 2013.... THAT woman, the thought of her... that she made my youngest feel responsible for that terror.... is still in place, and T said it's my own self judgment that's behind that, which shut me up, and made me think.
Just shutting down the cycle is an amazing thing. Bringing my attention to it.... and knocking the stuffing out of rage that's building and building... is an amazing thing.
Yesterday T told the story of monks burying a golden buddha in mud when their village was ransacked and overtaken by an enemy. Years later, after all the monks were gone, a child saw the glint of gold, leading to uncovering this beautiful buddha, and that reminded me of Tupp.
Just clearing out all the mud, and garbage, and judgments other people installed when we weren't able to defend ourselves, or make sense of it at the time.
Now that we're adults, and capable of defending ourselves.... and in my case, with help from a good T maybe to show me how, and keep me focused....
we uninstall the garbage, and remember what was always there.
And that brings me back to the gray black excercise. We're reconsolidating and changing the garbage stories INTO the original truth.
It's not hard. It's not a difficult process. It's relieving stress in the brain so the brain can do what it does efficiently WHEN IT'S NOT STUCK IN FIGHT OR FLIGHT MODE/amygdala/reptilian brain. We're remembering what's been there from the start, and will always be there.
One last thing about yesterday's appointment.... I didn't realize I held some of the beliefs around the story of my ASPD N husband, and the first night he assaulted me and I thought I would be killed while listening to my oldest 4yo dd call our for me.... THAT is something I've never processed, and thinking about it was like experiencing someone else's feelings and thoughts about it, bc I just haven't done it. Ever.
I didn't recognize my own belief system about it. I'd never asked myself, or allowed myself to process it.
It's time, and that one thing leads to a hundred, IME.
The journey continues.
Lighter